A prudent person foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and suffer -- Proverbs 22:3

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Are They Really That Stupid?

I have heard about the Cloward-Piven strategy of the America
political left for several years.It is
supposedly the brain-child of those who are opposed to the existing structure
of our society and political system.In
brief, the idea is to overwhelm the social and governmental structures at all
levels with debt, demands and crises to the point that they collapse.The traditional social structures that
support individuals, families and communities fall apart, financial systems
become unstable, economies break down, and governments are bankrupted.Out of the chaos and confusion of this
engineered catastrophe, the left, which has been preparing to take over during
the ensuing panic, would seize all power – economic and financial, educational,
political, military and police, medical, industrial, agricultural, etc.,
allowing the ushering in of the ultimate leftist paradise.Of course, it might get a little messy, and
resistance would have to be quelled quickly, and, perhaps brutally.Any bloodshed would be but the placental
blood from the birth of a truly new order, an end to the old constitutional
republic and the rise of a people’s republic.

As a hypothetical, academic exercise in utopia-building,
Cloward-Piven is interesting.It could
never happen in the real world because there are too many entrenched interests
with conflicting and competing goals.Conspiracy theories are usually wrong because the alleged conspirators
would never be able to cooperate sufficiently to implement a unified
agenda.

Besides, the stake-holders in a Cloward-Piven-type
conspiracy would have to be dumber than posts not to see that a planned
breakdown would not go as planned.There
would be too much feedback.Social
structures tend to be self-perpetuating and self-healing.This is true of families and religious
organizations as well as bureaucracies, informal networks as well as formal
ones.They can be disrupted, but, like a
wounded biological entity, they want to put themselves back together,
re-integrate, heal and revive even if it means suffering and scarring or a
degree of disfigurement.

Free market forces are not perfect.Sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is pretty
foolish.Those who think perfection is
possible – and they are idiots however high their IQs and however lauded their
academic achievements – latch onto the imperfections and slack in free markets
among free people.They are certain they
can clean up the system and make it tighter and more efficient.They need to restrict freedom just a little,
have more control, and get the right people into place to run things.When these efforts not only fail but make
things orders of magnitude worse, they complain that they didn’t have enough
control.Those who consider themselves
the elite insist that recalcitrant and reactionary segments of the population
sabotaged them, that they were targeted and resisted by political opponents, by
Luddites and Christians and racists and other undesirables.

The true believers in the Singularity, in Socialism, in the
upward, progressive march of human history will never accept that their vision
of compulsory freedom through central planning won’t work.They believe they can remold human nature,
forgetting that the mold they use is their own human nature, idealized and
whitewashed.

I am a little pessimistic in the short-term, because the
demagogues and dimwits running things at the moment know not what they do.I’m optimistic long-term, though, because the
desperate and delusional who think they are running things right now know not
what they do.They are going to be
burned with their own fire.What comes
out of the ashes, we can’t predict.God
knows.

Quotables

The true Christian should not resign himself to the inevitable: he should trust in the impertinence of a repeated prayer. -- Don Colacho

Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. -- Robert A. Heinlein

When law and morality are in contradiction, the citizen finds himself in the cruel dilemma of either losing his moral sense or of losing respect for the law -- Bastiat

The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy.

If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military. The hired servants of our rulers.

Only the government -- and a few outlaws.

I intend to be among the outlaws.--Edward Abbey from “The Right to Arms”

Followers

About Me

Disclaimer

All material presented here is intended solely for the entertainment of the author and like-minded readers. No statements by the author should be considered as professional advice of any kind. Material quoted and linked is provided without endorsement. Readers assume all responsibility with regard to the use or abuse of information presented on this site.